Rilke and Andreas-Salomà : A Love Story in Letters

"Immensely readable...a significant piece of scholarship."―Fred Volkmer, New York Sun

He would become one of the most important poets of the twentieth century; she a muse of Europe's fin-de-siècle thinkers and artists. In this collection of letters, a finalist for the PEN USA translation award, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé, a writer and intellectual fourteen years his senior, pen a relationship that spans thirty years and shifting boundaries: as lovers, as mentor and protégé, and as deep personal and literary allies.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), the author of Sonnets to Orpheus, Duino Elegies, and Letters to a Young Poet, was one of the greatest poets of the German language.

Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861–1937) is an important figure in the lives of many Western thinkers and artists. A Russian-born psychoanalyst and author, her diverse interests led to influential relationships with an array of intellectuals, including Nietzsche, Freud, and Rilke.


Edward Snow has received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for his Rilke translations. A professor at Rice University, he lives in Houston, Texas.

Michael Winkler has written extensively on modern poetry and fiction. He is a professor at Rice University and lives in Houston, Texas.